February 9, 2026
Yesterday was fun, but I couldn't help but remember the very first Super Bowl half time show I ever saw. It was January 15, 1967 and The University of Arizona marching band, led by the unflappable Jack Lee opened up the show with a rousing "The Sound of Music" while doing intricate, crisscrossing formations. Wow!
Then my old classmates segued into "Way Down Yonder In New Orleans" while forming a giant riverboat with a paddle wheel that spun!
From there they morphed into "When The Saints Go Marching In!" all the while marching into a giant musical note thirty yards tall!
Jack Lee's 8-year-old son, John, stood on the fifty yard line in shiny red cowboy garb and twirling a baton in the air JUST LIKE HIS DAD!
Then as a nod to me and historians all over Arizona, they did a reenactiment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, as a tuba player went down in the crossfire, prompting two other band members to rush over with a stretcher and load up the tuba and carry it away!
For the closer, the band formed two enormous stick figures and walked them to midfield to shake hands, but not before they kicked a pair of oversized footballs, which sent two stunt men in jetpacks rocketing up and out of the stadium!
Thanks to Greg Scott for sending me the newspaper account of the very first Super Bowl halftime show put on by The University of Arizona marching band. And, no, I wasn't kidding about the reenactment of the O.K. Corral fight. They really did that! Looking back, it seems even more fantastic to me now.
"Funny how blessings brighten as they take their flight."
—Old Vaquero Saying
No comments:
Post a Comment
Post your comments